


Far Away, At Home

by Trismegistus (Lebateleur)



Category: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley
Genre: Established Relationship, Interpersonal Drama, M/M, Slice of Life, Smut, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 12:48:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10764582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lebateleur/pseuds/Trismegistus
Summary: When after years of reluctance Keita agrees to travel to Tokyo, Thaniel knows what it means.





	Far Away, At Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/gifts).



**Tokyo, 1914**

It was late afternoon. They had just arrived at the hotel, and now Keita was being cross-examined by a thorough but exceedingly polite policeman as Thaniel stood quietly to one side, Keita having earlier been emphatic on the point that he not interject himself. Thaniel had not seen the necessity in this; after decades under Keita's tutelage he was as fluent in the language as anyone could hope to become without setting foot in the country and besides, he had dealt with more than his share of Japanese dignitaries in England. Surely that had prepared him to speak with the neighborhood patrolman?

'That was years ago,' Keita had told him. 'And at the Foreign Office. This is Honshu, and you'll only confuse him if you speak to him in Japanese.'

So idle waiting it was. He changed the clasp of his hands and tried to look as though he didn't understand any of the back-and-forth happening in front of him, which largely involved Keita answering very detailed but mundane questions about Thaniel's age, profession, residence, and background.

At last the policeman was satisfied and took his leave with a great deal of bowing to Keita and the repetition of polite parting phrases on both their parts. Once the man was out of earshot Keita turned to him with an arch look and asked, 'Was that truly worth missing out on?'

'You got my mother's maiden name wrong,' he said. 'It was Andrews.' 

Keita blinked as the memories of Thaniel's other replies faded and then laughed. Then he tipped his head toward the inn. 'Shall we?' 

It seemed every female member of the proprietor's family had assembled in the entryway to greet them. The women bowed in unison as he and Keita stepped over the threshold, welcoming them in the exceedingly formal language the Japanese employed in these situations. Thaniel thought he caught a glint of concern in the matron's eyes as they registered his foreignness, but it disappeared once he took off his shoes without needing to have been asked. She welcomed them again to the establishment by way of apologising for its many inadequacies. The women bowed once more, and then the youngest guided them down a long hallway of polished wood toward their rooms, her white-stockinged feet gliding smoothly over the boards. 

At the entrance she knelt and drew the door open along its runner to reveal a handsome room, almost bare of furniture and floored in reed mats, so new they were still green, that opened on to a lovely little garden of moss and rocks. The maid bent her forehead to the floor as they stepped over the threshold, then slid the door shut behind them and shuffled off down the hallway, strides shortened by the tight wrap of her kimono. He turned to Keita. 'What now?' 

'You could take a bath?' Keita suggested.

He laughed, and said after a moment, 'Really, a bath.'

'The tub is cedar. You'll like it.'

And Thaniel did like it, he thought after he finished washing up and eased himself into the wooden tub. The scent was heavenly, as was the steam and the heat of the water as it worked its way into his troublesome joints. Indoor plumbing had seemed a marvelous luxury when he'd first let the room at Filigree Street but he had grown accustomed to it since, and now it was this bath, with its water heated by a charcoal oven outdoors, carefully tended by the innkeeper's son, that seemed a novelty. 

The water was scalding hot and Thaniel was only able to withstand it for a few minutes before he clambered back out, gasping and red as a lobster. He toweled off and wrapped himself in the thin robe provided for guests to wear when relaxing in their rooms. The soft cotton felt cool and lovely against his skin. He tried not to think about how long it took to knot the sash. 

The stiffness in his fingers had set in during his late thirties and grown steadily worse until performing regularly had no longer been possible. It was then that Keita had suggested they travel to Milan. Thaniel had been privately skeptical, but true to Keita's memories the novelty of unfamiliar sights had raised his spirits tremendously. They had seen the better part of the world since then, sometimes just the two of them and sometimes with Eliza, her husband, and their grandchildren whenever they could all manage it. But in all that time they had never visited Japan.

Once the idea that he might travel abroad—a concept once so far from the realm of the possible that Thaniel had never even considered it—had become not only conceivable, but also a reality, Thaniel had asked Keita to show him Japan. Keita had looked at him as though he were mad. 'I'm a baron,' he'd said crossly. 'If we go there I'll be made a member of the House of Peers and then we'll never escape.' Thaniel thought he was probably joking, but then he recalled the deference Keita's countrymen paid him and was no longer quite so certain. 

Thaniel reminded him he had engineered his meeting Thaniel a decade before the actual event; surely he could remember his way out of being press-ganged into government. 'Perhaps,' Keita conceded, 'But not right now.' And whenever Thaniel raised the issue after there was always something—a storm at sea, a festival in some European capital, a delay that would keep Eliza's husband from meeting an influential contact—to argue against making the journey at that juncture. Thaniel had always found others' fears of Keita's abilities absurd, but eventually he could no longer ignore that Keita was stalling. It had led to one of their first real fights.

'Yes, it is an inconvenience we could choose to avoid,' he said carefully, once they had done shouting. 'Only, I'd like every now and then to confront an inconvenience I've got us into, instead of one you haven't been able to avoid. Otherwise I'm just allowing myself to be led about by the nose.'

Keita did not reply and for a moment Thaniel thought he meant to ignore the objection entirely. Then he gestured to the bureau drawer, and the journals stored within. 'I expend enough effort trying to remember things I'll forget but want not to,' he said. 'I'd rather not be reminded of the things I'd rather forget, if I can at all help it.' 

And what, Thaniel thought, could he say to that? Through his work at the Foreign Office he had pieced together that Keita had survived a war, and had once had a large family who had not, while Thaniel's father had been taken following a long period of decline, and he had never known his mother at all. Because he could not imagine what it would be like to find himself surrounded by reminders of family taken from him too soon, he had let the matter drop. So when Keita himself raised the prospect of visiting Tokyo, Thaniel thought he knew what it meant.

The long journey to Asia had afforded him the opportunity to come to terms with the knowledge. By the time their steamship docked in Yokohama the fear had receded to a familiar presence, and he found he was able to take in all he saw with the wonder of childhood. Tokyo was a marvel, unlike anything he'd seen in their travels through Europe or the Americas. The streets thronged with cars, rickshaws, women and children in kimono, and men in eye-catching combinations of native dress, top hats, and watch chains; and all of them shod in high wooden sandals to keep their feet from the mud. On the broader thoroughfares low-slung houses of wood and earthen walls gave way to handsome stone buildings to rival those in any Western capital, long strands of electrical wiring arcing between them. They spent an entire afternoon just in the Mitsukoshi in the Ginza, and to Thaniel's eye the elegance of its goods and clientele rivaled anything he had seen elsewhere in the world. 

Throughout it all Thaniel had been conscious of Keita's eyes upon him, drinking him in as avidly as Thaniel was the sights around them. He thought his wonder might let Keita experience his native land through new eyes, and was glad of it. He hoped it would be a comfort to Keita after he was gone. His hands stilled briefly on the knot of his sash, and after a moment, he shook the thought away. Morbid thoughts would do him no good, and since their arrival Keita had been distracted but not overly concerned, which surely meant the event was some days or weeks away. He checked the drape of his robe and slipped across the courtyard to their room. 

In Japanese fashion, it was bare of any furniture save a brazier and a low desk, at which Keita was seated when he returned. He was writing in his journal, pen nib sending electric blue slashes through the air as it moved across the page. 'Mm, not just yet,' he said as Thaniel slid the door back on its runners. 'Let me get this down before I forget entirely; I'll only be a moment.' Thaniel walked over and kissed him on top of the head, because he'd been intending to do it anyway. 

The heat of the bath and the exhaustion of the train ride from Yokohama had made him very tired, and he wondered again how he had grown so old without noticing. Keita had already laid out the bedding, so Thaniel went and stretched out atop the thick quilt that would serve as their mattress and listened to the scratch of Keita's pen across the page. Some minutes later Thaniel heard him close the journal and then his soft footfalls as he crossed the reed mats. 'Mm,' Thaniel said as Keita lay down beside him, and nestled against his side. The sound of Keita's breathing, slow and familiar, was comforting. 

Keita wrapped an arm around his shoulder, fingers exploring the tense spots along the muscles there. He sighed and placed a kiss in the crook of Keita's neck. Keita touched his forehead to Thaniel's briefly, then kissed him. Keita raised a hand to the string of the humming bulb on the ceiling above and turned off the light. 

''Night,' Thaniel murmured, and earned himself a sharp poke beneath the ribs. He muttered and squirmed away as Keita's fingers found the front his robe and slipped within. 'I've just had a bath,' he protested vaguely. 

'It's already all but happened,' Keita murmured into his neck. 'So there's really not much use in objecting.' Thaniel was on the verge of it anyway; he was tired and Eliza and the others would arrive on the first train in the morning. But Keita's fingers were already tracing circles up the length of his spine. His fatigue melted in their wake as he sighed and arched into the touch. He sighed again, deeper, and drew Keita's sash open with a slither of fabric that hissed the color of fog. 

Keita raised Thaniel's hand to his lips and kissed each knuckle in turn. His mouth was warm. Thaniel pulled free of Keita's grip to cup Keita's head in his hands and bent to cover Keita's lips with his own, teasing at them with his tongue until they parted. Their twinned breathing grew deeper and more urgent. 

Keita was moving insistently against him, so he rolled Keita onto his back and tangled his hands in Keita's hair. Keita made a small encouraging noise and as his thighs parted Thaniel slid between them, their robes falling open beneath and around them. The skin of Keita's chest was smooth beneath him and already dampening with sweat, and Thaniel could feel the drum of his quickening heartbeat. He bent his head to press kisses down Keita's throat and along his clavicle while Keita writhed and drew shuddering breaths beneath him. Keita' nipples were taut against his lips and tongue, and he gasped as Thaniel took them gently between his teeth. 

Keita's hands slid lower to curl around his hips, fingers tensing whenever Thaniel's tongue did something exceptionally good. They slid lower still to trail goosebumps up and down Thaniel's thighs, and then at last he took Thaniel into his hands. 'Ah,' Thaniel gasped, and raised himself onto his knees to watch as he slid in and out of Keita's sure grip. 

Keita's fingers were deft, seemingly as untouched by age as the rest of him, and it wasn't long before Thaniel was moaning low primary colours into the darkness. He arched into Keita's touch and half-collapsed atop him, fingers curling over Keita's shoulders, all bone and wiry sinew beneath his hands. Keita's other hand was on his waist, steadying him but also easing him into the rhythm he'd want from Thaniel soon. Thaniel drew a shuddering breath. When he opened his eyes Keita's hair was a dark halo against the quilt, his eyes glittering as they darted between Thaniel's face and the play of his fingers along Thaniel's length. 

Thaniel moaned, insistent, and reached for Keita, who batted his hand away. 'You'll get to me later,' he said, and in the hoarseness of Keita's voice Thaniel heard the echo of things he had not yet done but would. He drew a stuttering breath and fought to regain control before he tipped over that ledge too soon.

Keita's hands withdrew to tease maddeningly between Thaniel's legs as Thaniel gasped and panted and tried to press back into his touch. Unsure how much more he could withstand, he looked about, wild-eyed and only half-aware what he saw. 'It's over there—no, I'll get it, you'll only spill it if you try,' Keita said and reached one hand into the dark. Thaniel lowered himself onto the quilt beside Keita and kissed him as Keita measured a quantity of oil out onto his fingers. He drew Keita in close and Keita hooked one leg over Thaniel's waist as he slid his hand between Keita's buttocks and began to prepare him. Keita knew what he needed, and Thaniel was content to taste Keita's mouth and the salt sweat of his skin as Keita gasped and pressed back into his fingers. 

When he could withstand no more he rose again to his knees and wrapped Keita's legs tight around him. Keita's eyes snapped open, pupils dilating as he remembered what Thaniel was about to do to him. This was what Thaniel liked best, when Keita lay beneath him moaning with the memory of what would come, and his hands shook as he positioned himself and pressed within. 

Keita's knees hitched to either side of the mattress and his head thrashed against the pillow as Thaniel took up his rhythm with increasing urgency. The gold of Keita's voice was going molten at the edges. Thaniel pressed into him as deeply as he could, breath coming in great panting gasps that still couldn't fill his lungs. Keita was moaning; his hands spasmed against Thaniel's thighs and then Thaniel too was pulsing out into him and it was all he could do not to cry out as it carried him away. 

They lay for some time tangled atop the sheets, catching their breath. At last Keita ran a hand across Thaniel's forehead, pushing back the damp hair to kiss him there, and made to pull the coverlet up around them. 'Will it be all right?' Thaniel managed, still groggy with the aftereffects of his exertions. 

'Yes,' Keita murmured, 'And we'll have Eliza and her family with us then.' 

I'm glad,' he whispered into the crook of Keita's neck. 

 

True to Keita's memories, the others arrived at ten the next morning. Eliza caught sight of them first as they stood waiting a little way from the tracks and strode forward to greet them. 'Mr Mori, Mr Steepleton,' she said as she drew up alongside. And then, when he leaned down to embrace her, so that only he could hear, 'Hello, Dad.'

'Hello, love,' he whispered, and bent to kiss the top of her head. Years of Keita's baking hadn't overcome the initial privations of the workhouse and in adulthood she was still a small woman, but there was so much liveliness in her eyes and smile that she seemed much taller. He held her close a moment longer then stepped back to let her greet Keita.

Meanwhile, John had threaded his way through the traffic to draw up alongside, Alice and Stephen each gripping one of his hands. Suddenly bashful, they pressed into their father's legs and cast uncertain looks at Thaniel and Keita until their mother coaxed them forward to greet their grandparents. Thaniel knelt to hug them both, but Keita only placed a hand on each of their heads in turn, though his eyes were alight with warmth. It was a reserve Thaniel had never seen from him in England, but it suited him here. 

They stood for a time, smiling at each other as the bustle of the station churned about them, simply happy to be in each other's presence. 'Well,' John said finally. 'What now?' 

'A rest, please, and a change of clothes,' said Eliza. 'It's been nothing but boats or rail for weeks, and for once I'd like to sit on something that isn't moving.'

Thaniel thought John rather looked like he agreed with her, but he eyed their children skeptically. 'Alas, I think more sitting is the last thing these two have in mind,' he said and flashed Eliza his easy smile. Alice was tugging on her father's hand, asking to go look at a vendor selling horned beetles in little woven baskets and Stephen looked ready to dash into the crowd at a moment's inattention from his parents. 

Thaniel turned to Keita. 'There's a shrine not far from here, if you go straight down that road,' he said. Thaniel followed his outstretched finger. 'It's big enough for them to enjoy running around without being a nuisance to anyone, and if you take them there now, no one will get lost.'

'Oh, thank God,' said Eliza with feeling, and Thaniel pretended not to have heard the oath; she wasn't a child anymore and besides, he doubted few people in the vicinity would have understood it. And part of him very much wanted the chance to spend time alone with the children, because how many more chances would there be?

He smiled. 'That sounds lovely.'

It was an easy walk to the shrine, although a somewhat more daunting challenge to keep Alice and Stephen from rushing ahead of him and he gave up the effort entirely once the soaring wooden gate came into view. They passed beneath and left Tokyo behind. Trees grew close and massive along both sides of the path that wound its way around the base of a hill and further into the grounds. The roaring of the cicadas in their boughs drowned out all of the sounds of the morning traffic, their humming an unfamiliar color to Thaniel's eyes. The three of them stood for a moment in silence, taking it in. Then Alice seized a stick and ran whooping up the path, brandishing it like a sword, and the spell was broken. 'Wait for me,' Stephen cried, and ran after her.

Thaniel followed at a slower pace, reassured by Keita's recollection that no harm would come to them and eager to take in the sights around him. The hill was steep but the path was in no hurry to reach its summit, switching lazily back and forth along the slope to give stunning views of Tokyo's rooftops at each turn. The grounds seemed positively vast after the claustrophobic bustle of the streets below, and beyond a few Japanese men out for a stroll in top hats and native robes, did not seem to be frequented by many of the city's citizens. Thaniel nodded politely to each as he passed and earned an 'Ah, good day,' from the most gregarious of their number. 

With Alice and Stephen's exclamations as his guide, he rounded a final curve to discover the shrine opening out before him. It was comprised of several low wooden buildings surrounding a central court, their distinctive soaring eaves brilliant with vermilion paint and gold leaf. White paper banners strung along their facades and a small pavilion built over a chattering waterspout fluttered in the breeze. 

A priest and two female attendants had emerged from one of the buildings at the sound of the children's shouts, but seemed more amused than alarmed by their exuberance. Thaniel crossed to the foot of the veranda where they stood and said in Japanese, 'I apologise. They are somewhat noisy...'

The priest blinked but recovered quickly. 'Ah, it's no trouble,' he said, and then added by way of compliment, 'They are very active.' The two attendants laughed softly behind their hands. 

Thaniel bowed again and then turned to round up his charges and admonish them to not be quite so boisterous, earning an exasperated 'Grandpapa' from Alice and a furrow-browed pout from Stephen. Then Stephen went very still, eyes fixed alertly on something behind Thaniel's shoulder. Thaniel followed his gaze. A young woman with three children had emerged into the grounds and was crossing over to the building where the priest stood. A moment later both Stephen and Alice had darted off to play conspicuously in front of them, Thaniel's scolding already forgotten. 

The new arrivals watched them cautiously. Their mother was speaking quietly to one of the female attendants, who nodded and motioned her into the sanctuary. She removed her shoes and lined them up carefully at the base of the staircase before ascending to kneel on a cushion placed at the edge of the mats. A moment later Thaniel heard the beat of a drum and the priest's voice chanting, a low silver drone shot through with purple. 

Thaniel took a seat on the sun-warmed steps and turned his face to the sky. All five children had overcome their initial wariness and were now engaged in a game—some combination of tag and hide-and-seek—whose rules seemed to change by the moment. Something about the three of them caught at his attention, but for what reason, he could not have said. 

Shrieking, the five of them disappeared behind an outbuilding, followed a moment later by Stephen's petulant voice. 'No, that doesn't count!' One of the others demanded why, and Stephen said 'Because..' and stopped, having reached the limit of his ability to explain in Japanese. He continued a moment later in English, but as Thaniel was rising from his seat to help, Stephen's interlocutor replied in rapid English of his own, and the Thaniel's mind caught up with what his eyes had already noted—the unusually light brown highlights to the three children's hair, their high-bridged noses. 

The realisation was accompanied by a sudden, unexpected pang that he brushed away a moment later. He'd never truly thought he might one day have children of his own, even before he'd met Keita, and he could not have asked for a better daughter than Eliza. He settled back down onto his seat on the steps, keeping one ear on the children's chatter so that he could step in should it seem likely to descend into tears. 

The sun crept higher in the sky, the cloudless day beautiful but threatening another punishingly humid afternoon. It would soon be time for lunch, and another squabble was threatening to erupt, so Thaniel went to collect his charges. 'But Grandpapa, we're not hungry,' said Alice. 'And we want to keep _playing_.' 

At that moment the children's mother emerged from the sanctuary and crossed over to them, a small, white-wrapped parcel pressed against her kimono. Noting the trepidation in her eyes, Thaniel bowed and greeted her first. 

Her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her hand. Then she bowed and apologised by way of introduction. 'Auntie, they speak our language!' said the eldest of the three, taking the woman's hand, and Thaniel realised she was not their mother but their caretaker. Her eyes darted to Thaniel, worried lest the young girl's words cause offense, and Thaniel smiled at her to show they had not. 

'Can we play with them again, after lunch?' asked Stephen hopefully, and left Thaniel unsure of how to continue. Years in the Foreign Office had taught him to interact comfortably with dignitaries but had done little to prepare him to arrange for his grandchildren to meet new playmates. 'We are from England,' he explained, and told her the name of the neighborhood and block where their hotel was located. 

The woman ducked her head again and said she would ask the mistress if they could return again tomorrow. 'You speak Japanese very well,' she added, and he demurred as courtesy demanded. It was nevertheless an odd feeling to find himself the object of such curiosity. But then, he supposed he had observed the residents of the show village just as avidly, and he no doubt seemed as strange to her as they once had to him then. He remembered the patient grace with which they'd borne his interest as he answered her questions. He told her about life in England, his impressions of Tokyo, and the many mistakes he'd made when he'd first started learning Japanese, and watched her eyes shine. 

They parted shortly thereafter, Alice and Stephen alight with the anticipation of continuing their game tomorrow. But the next day, those plans went badly awry. They were both in tears as Eliza shepherded them in through the door; they had waited at the shrine for half the morning, but their new friends had not come. 

Ever quick on her feet in an unexpected situation, Eliza had marched them to the nearest police box and asked the officer there where the family could be found. Her Japanese had surpassed Thaniel's even in childhood and that, combined with Alice and Stephen's hopeful faces, had convinced him of their sincerity. He did in fact know the three children; they belonged to a well-off family from the south who lived in a mansion some ways away, but it was not a long journey by streetcar.

Eliza had dutifully led the children there as well, only to find the place shuttered. Another neighborhood patrolman directed her to the caretaker's home; the caretaker was not there, but her elderly mother was. She knew only that the Matsumoto family had left the day before, and in a hurry. They had not said where they were going, but she knew they kept a house on Formosa. With no other choice, Eliza had thanked her and returned home. 

Thaniel offered to help with the children but Eliza demurred. 'They may just have to cry it out,' she said with an air of experienced resignation. 'And we should probably let them if we still mean to go to the star festival tonight.' Thaniel gave her shoulder a squeeze and went to find Keita.

He was waiting for Thaniel in their room. 

'Really?' he said flatly. 'The Matsumoto family.'

Keita's shoulders hunched a little. 'You weren't meant to find out,' he said.

'Well, it's a little too late for that now. What earthly purpose could this have served? I don't know how they learnt whose grandchildren theirs had been playing with, but you must have seen how they'd react once they knew.' 

He continued into the face of Keita's silence, 'I understand why you wouldn't want to meet Grace—or either of them, for that matter—again. But surely there were other ways to avoid the encounter aside from scaring them into _fleeing the country._ ' His voice was hardening despite his best efforts to keep it level, but he had spent a lifetime defending Keita from his detractors, and this seemed as cruelly casual a manipulation as any they had suspected of him.

He stared at Keita until Keita met his eyes, but he couldn't hold Thaniel's gaze for long. 'That was the entire point. They had to be too frightened, because in all the futures where we did meet, they either thought I was trying to trick them out of the country for my own benefit or convinced themselves I could find a way to help them if they stayed.

'But I don't think it was meant to happen precisely like this, something must have changed,' he finished He motioned with his chin to his luggage and the journal packed within. 'You're welcome to check if you like.'

But Thaniel had seized on something else. 'But why should they leave at all? If you aren't trying to avoid them, what difference should it make?'

Keita sighed. 'There's going to be a war,' he said at last. 'And then an earthquake. I don't remember it ending well for Japan. And Japan will not be kind to any foreigners who are here while it happens.' He used the Japanese word for foreigner. Thaniel had heard the Japanese use it in reference to the English, even while abroad in England, and so he did not mistake how ugly things could become for any who found themselves outside that circle. He thought about Grace and Matsumoto's children, and was glad they would not be swept up in it.

He was suddenly tired, and confused, but no longer angry. 'Thank you.' He reached out, and took Keita's hand in his. Keita squeezed his fingers. A moment later, he looked at Thaniel. 'But you're still upset?' he asked, eyelashes dipping with uncertainty.

'Not upset,' he said, although it felt as though all the air had gone out of him. 'It's just that when you finally agreed to come here, I thought—' _that you consented to it because I was going to die._ But he couldn't bring himself to say the words. 

Even still, he had intended to for long enough that Keita caught them before the memory could fade. 'No,' he said fiercely. 'No, not now, not for a long time. And when it does come, I will not be calm.'

'You'll tell me though, well beforehand?' Thaniel broke in, before the courage to do so abandoned him.

'Thaniel, it's not something anyone should have to know—'

'No, but _you_ will know, and I've already caught glimpses of what it will do to you, there are moments when you're decades older than you should be. Please,' he said, into Keita's fathomless eyes. 

'All right,' Keita agreed at last. Thaniel bent to rest his cheek on the crown of Keita's head. 'I didn't think I'd ever want to come back,' Keita continued some time later. His tone turned wry. 'And it is harder than you realise, avoiding everyone who'll want to press gang me into government, because I'll be useful to them one the war's on.' He sighed. 'But now we're here, I'm glad I've had the chance to see it once more, before it all changes, and that you and Eliza and the children have too.' 

He lapsed into silence and they sat, listening to the cicadas and the cries of the street vendors beyond the garden wall. When it was time to go, Eliza and John were already waiting for them at the entrance. As Thaniel stepped into the street Stephen took his hand, and his heart felt lighter than it had in years.

**Author's Note:**

> Being something of a mashup of elements from your various _Watchmaker_ prompts.


End file.
